A ‘Challenge Funnel’ is one of the best ways to get your customers to engage with your product or service without feeling being ‘sold to’.
In this video we explain how to conduct a challenge funnel – and why as a coach you should consider running challenges. We break down an actual real-life challenge funnel that produced over 4x ROAS.
Make sure you watch the full video to understand how to construct a challenge funnel that works. For more information feel free to reach out to us.
Video Transcript
So it's 2022. So you guys are probably wondering, what can you do in 2022 as a coach to actually increase your revenue?
So today I want to show you a funnel that has worked really, really well recently and more and more of my clients in the coaching niche are actually adopting it right now.
And I want to show you some real figures. I won’t be able to show you the actual funnels, but I will basically give you an outline of how the funnel looks like so that you can have a better idea of how to construct one, right? And I’ll show you some real figures so you can see the huge potential that this type of funnel actually has.
So without further ado, let’s jump into it.
So these are the actual figures from one of our clients, right?
We spent about 7,000 pounds - this is a client in the UK, right?
And yeah, based on that just… I won’t bore you with the other figures.
But basically out of 7,000+ we spent, we ended up getting
29,000 pounds in sales. Right, 29,000 pounds.
And that gives us an ROAS of over 4 times. So 4 times on ad spend.
So that's a phenomenal result, right?
So what is this funnel?
This funnel is actually a challenge funnel, right? This is gaining popularity in 2021 and now in 2022, I believe it is the year of the challenge funnel.
And I think if you’re a coach and you want to boost your revenues, if you’re not doing a challenge funnel, this is the year to start looking at it, and it may not be your main funnel, but it can be one of those things that you can do every month or every two or three months, right? While you’re doing your webinars or whatever the events on the side. Right?
And this is what I have been recommending to most of my clients to look at challenges because as we go into 2022, a lot of people are used to online events already, right? And here’s the thing. So many people are doing webinars and all that. While they still work, right, we’ve seen a decline in the actual return on ad spend.
So I think having that challenge thing, people don’t want to just like jump in and, you know, spend a bunch of time, but these are people who want to get results, right? So if your challenge promises a good result at the end of the day, this is a great way to help supplement your existing funnels, right? Another funnel to consider, another thing to consider as a revenue generation for your coaching business. Right.
So let's jump into how the funnel actually looks like.
I won’t show you the landing page and all that because of confidentiality. And I want to, you know, obviously don’t want my client to have a lot of competitors coming up with like the exact same page, right? So I’m not going to show you the exact page, but I will show you the structure of how this client actually structured this challenge funnel.
Step 1 - Run a Free Challenge Funnel
OK, so on the front end, what we did was basically we ran ads to a sign up page for the challenge. So this was a free challenge. OK, so if you’re thinking of doing ads to a paid challenge, it’s going to be a lot harder versus ads to a free challenge. I believe the model is having a free challenge in the front end. That is important, right?
Step 2 - Give an Option to Upgrade
So second thing here is on the thank you page, right, after they sign up, I would suggest that you give them the option of a premium experience. So in this case, my client actually gave them the option to upgrade to, a small amount less than $100 right, to upgrade to a premium experience where they would get all these bonuses and an extra session or two, right or post-event or special access to him for one or two sessions.
So this is something to consider as well as part of your upsell, right, so that you can liquidate some of the ad spend upfront with your ads.
Step 3 - Retarget Non-Upgraders
And then they will go to a final thank you page. Obviously, we would also target the … we actually retargeted the non-upgraders to come back to this to try and get them to upgrade. And that was also with their email system and the auto responder sequence to get them to come back to upgrade into a premium experience, right? So that was to help liquidate some of the ad costs, right?
And in this scenario, the client actually sent them to a Facebook group once they land on the thank you page. And I think on a thank you page it’s important that you get them to start engaging. Get them to start doing stuff.
And in this case, what the client did was they actually got them. The people signed up to actually download a workbook and to download the bonus. So get them to download a workbook, some printed material so that they can use this workbook at the event itself.
And I believe that actually helps to improve show up rates, because once they have taken the effort to print the workbook, the chances of them showing up is much higher because they want to fill in the blanks and they see all that stuff, the tables and whatever you have in that workbook as well, right? So I believe it’s important to have that.
In this case, they redirected them to a Facebook group. OK. So the challenge for them actually happened in a Facebook group and through the Facebook group obviously, there’s a lot of nurturing. And obviously, once again, there’s a welcome message on the the Facebook group, resources, etc. OK. All right.
So what happens in the actual challenge, some of you might be asking, right?
Yeah, typo here. Happens, I guess.
OK, so here’s the thing it was a 5 day challenge, right? So the 5 day challenge promises a particular outcome at the end of the 5 days, right?
But what my client did was they actually had a welcome party, which was on the Sunday before the actual event and the whole purpose of this welcome party was to generate rapport and it was to build some goodwill. Just get them excited about the whole five days, right? So there’s no homework on the first day. It’s more like getting to know one another in the community. All that kind of stuff, right?
Then on day 1, it’s like… Day 1 to day 5 of the challenge, it’s like they actually do a little work, a little bit of work each day and they would get a small outcome, something tangible each day. And I think this is very important that they get something tangible each day so that by the end of the fifth day, they can have these little things that build up towards the big promise that you have promised to deliver in the challenge, right? Whatever that outcome is on the day 5, each of these days are building towards that. So small wins each of the 5 days and then leading up to a big win on day 5 or day 6 of the challenge, right?
And he actually had a bonus day as well on day 6, right? So some of the people who lasted till day 5, obviously by day 6, there’s some bonus training, some bonus resources, etc. to build more goodwill. And also, it’s another opportunity to offer his services as well, right? His upsells.
OK, so what it is, it’s like, you know, in the meantime, with the ads, we are retargeting people to come and join the challenge, right? For the first 3 or 4 days, because as you know, you’re lucky to get maybe 30, 40% of people actually engaged and attending the challenge.
So what we wanted to do is to get more people to attend the challenge. And we did that by retargeting people.
Well, we retargeted all the registrants. So to get them engaged in the whole challenge, right?
And then after the 6 days, that’s where they were offered to get a free consult, right? So they did all these things. And then basically the whole thing was that if you want a one-on-one evaluation on this thing or actually they offered the product and they said, you know, if you want this product, you have to apply for it, right?
So they would do a qualification call kind of thing. And in the qualification call, they actually gave them several options, right? Which is at different price points one at 6,000, one at 3,000, one at 1,500, right. So there were several options for them to either upgrade their offer or to downgrade. So upsell product and a downsell product, right?
And in the meantime, of course, we had email sequences and retargeting sequences to get people to this application page, right? So yeah, that was it in a nutshell.
And I think this is something that if you’re not doing challenges yet, this is something to really consider in 2022, because people start to want to see outcomes when they participate, right?
And the thing is, the other one benefit of a challenge is that, you know, you’re able to sell a much higher ticket product because you know, you’re engaging them over maybe 3 days, 5 days, 7 days, even 30 days. Right.
So by the end of it, right, they are so basically ingrained and indoctrinated with your whole process, and you’ll be able to sell them a much higher ticket offer compared to at just a webinar where, you know, maybe 500 to 997 is kind of like the norm, but in the challenge, like my client here, was able to sell them up to a $6,000 product. Right? That’s with a consultation call at the end of it, of course.
So yeah, I think, you know, challenges should play a role in your coaching business if they are not already. And you know, this is also one way to differentiate yourself from the competition as well, where everybody is trying to basically do a sales type webinar and then basically pitch a product.
And I think there is going to be a place. There will be a place to continue to do good quality webinars that will get good results. But at the same time, this is another tool to add to your arsenal to actually generate revenue and to help more people.
And that’s with a challenge because a lot of, many coaches that I work with, it’s hard to kind of like, explain their product or service in one webinar, right? They got to experience it. And through this challenge, people get to experience more of you. And when they get results, they want more results, right? So, yeah, definitely consider challenges.
And I hope this was useful for you. And feel free to reach out to us if you got any questions or would like us to help you to build your challenge funnel and to grow your business through challenges. Happy to hear from you. Thanks.
